


A Very Self-Indulgent Christmas Special

by NoisyNoiverns



Series: Rise & Reign [8]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Christmas Party, Storytelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-26
Updated: 2015-12-26
Packaged: 2018-05-09 09:43:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5535188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoisyNoiverns/pseuds/NoisyNoiverns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Eijalsen crew throws a small Christmas party. It doesn't turn out as Christmassy as planned, but they make it work.</p><p>Spoilers for Rise & Reign.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Very Self-Indulgent Christmas Special

**Author's Note:**

> Pay attention to the summary, here there be spoilers!

“I dunno, man, I think maybe we should just get a fake tree.”

“How dare you say such a thing to me! It’s _Christmas_ , man!”

Siri paused as she was walking through the mess hall, then shook her head and moved on to sit with the rest of the engineers. “Does anybody know what Ava and Cael are arguing about?”

Raels and Leartios shook their heads at her, and Matan shrugged. “Some human holiday. Just leave ’em.”

“What kind of holiday involves trees? Is it a celebration of nature?”

Raels snorted, and Siri heard the brief hum that she’d learned equated to Raels talking to himself. “What?” she asked, tilting her head and accepting the plate of food Dara offered her as she sat down next to her.

“Oh, he probably said something rude about humans and their holidays,” Dara said cheerfully. “I met his great-uncle, I think grumpiness is genetic.”

Raels twitched a membrane but continued eating like he hadn’t heard her say anything. Meanwhile, on the other side of the mess hall, Adreon came limping in just in time for one of the humans to say, “Hey, we can just _make_ a tree, all we need is some wires and Adreon’s big stick!”

Siri was pretty sure it had been a joke, but Adreon apparently didn’t take it as such, because he whirled on the two of them, spinning his staff in his hand so he could slam it against both of them, quickly following up with a sharp kick with his good leg. Once they were on the ground, he simply settled his staff back to its usual position, straightened out his cloak, and continued hobbling along like nothing had happened.

Raels heaved a sigh and got up, drifting over to Adreon while quietly chastising him in the closed dialect. Ava and Cael, meanwhile, pulled themselves up off the floor, and Ava shoved Cael with one hand. “What’d you have to go and say that for?” she said with a scowl. “You know Preacher’s touchy about that thing.”

“It was a _joke_ , jeez.”

At another table, Axilus snorted loudly and rattled his mandibles against his jaw to get their attention. “What are you two arguing about, anyway?” he said, in between bites of whatever artery-clogging meat smorgasbord Solihim had cooked up today. He tossed back the last piece, then added, “No trees on this ship without the captain’s say-so, real _or_ fake.”

Cael rolled his shoulders. “Christmas, boss. My family always decorated a few weeks early.”

“That word means nothing to me. The first one, not ‘boss’ or anything after that.” He thought for a moment, then added, “Well, okay, the words after ‘boss’ I understand individually, but not strung together in that context.”

“Human holiday,” Ava said cheerfully. “You decorate a tree, you sing songs, you exchange presents. It’s fun.”

“Ugly sweaters,” Cael added. “Can’t forget the ugly sweaters, they’re very important.”

Axilus flicked his mandibles slowly, then heaved a sigh and pulled up his omni-tool. “Thie, mind if the humans set up a tree for some holiday of theirs?”

He listened for a bit, then bobbed his head. “Right. See you back on the bridge.”

He put his omni-tool away and got up, picking up his dishes. “You can have your tree, just find somewhere you’re not getting in the way of day-to-day stuff. So stay out of engineering, stay off the bridge, _definitely_ stay away from requisitions, and for Palaven’s sake, don’t go anywhere _near_ Chesk’s part of the cargo bay.”

Cael snapped a quick salute. “Right, thanks, boss.”

Axilus grumbled and walked to the kitchen area to drop off his dishes, and Siri watched Ava and Cael go trotting off before turning back to her food and the other engineers. At some point, Raels had sat back down, his father apparently appeased, and was signing at Leartios across the table, the lack of lights on his hearing aid indicating he’d shut out audio input for a while. Matan merely looked back at her, upper set of eyes blinking out of time with the lower ones. “So, uh,” she said, “anybody feel like an extranet search?”

-

 _Click-click-click_. The sound of knitting needles was a perennial one in Ishalhe’s office, like a metronome that actually did something. Knitting served two purposes in the _Eijalsen_ ’s psychiatry office: the constant rhythm soothed patients, and having something to do with her hands soothed the good doctor.

Regular psych evals were a requirement on the ship, even for the ones in charge. Somehow, whenever Axilus was in for his evals, Ishalhe was always using her red yarn. He didn’t even know how it happened, considering next to her desk was a huge basket of every color of yarn imaginable, and even some that weren’t. It was like the old drell had a weird sixth sense for when she needed her red yarn.

Axilus eyed her current project, a large mass that didn’t particularly have much in the way of shape at the moment, and fluttered one mandible. “So what are you making today?”

She paused and pushed her glasses up her face daintily, then resumed knitting, gaze still trained down on her work. “Oh, just something for Hiae,” she said evenly. “Enoch’s idea. The poor dear gets so cold hiding in the main battery, you know?”

“So you’re making them a..?”

“A sweater, Axilus, dear.” She paused to count her stitches, then the incessant clicking resumed. “Aela had this idea to knit a little something for everyone, because the ship gets so drafty, and then Enoch suggested we do it for that holiday of the humans’, Christmas I think it’s called, and he said Valentin had this lovely idea to throw a little party with everyone, and all the species could share their different traditions for winter holidays, and it all sounded very sweet to me.”

“Ma’am, with all due respect, everything sounds sweet to you.”

“Your boots getting dirt on my couch doesn’t, Mr. Madelivio.”

He flared his mandibles but removed his feet from the couch, shaking his head slightly, and Ishalhe pointed one of her knitting needles at him. “No attitude in my office.”

“Sorry, ma’am.”

She smiled and resumed knitting. “It’s no real matter. Anyway, Enoch told me Valentin plans to propose the party idea to you and the captain at dinner tonight, so you might want to let him know beforehand. You know he hates surprises.”

“If you say so.”

He started to push himself up off the couch, and she leveled her needles at him again. “Not so fast, young man. We’re not done with your evaluation yet.”

-

By the time Siri wandered into the mess hall, the party Valentin had suggested a few weeks ago was in full swing. The humans had moved their fake tree covered in lights and balls into the mess hall, complete with small piles of pretty boxes underneath it, Solihim and Enoch were working in the kitchen to make enough hot drinks to almost completely cover one counter, and Ava was walking around distributing presents, singing while she did it. “Joy to the world, da-da-da-daaa, I dooon’t know the wooords to this sooong! I’m really sorry Graaandma, I’m a really bad Caaatholic, I just really like this tune, I just really like this tune, I just re- _eeally_ , reeeally like this tune.”

She danced over to Siri and pressed a slightly smushed package into her hands with a smile. “Hey, sweetheart! Go ahead and open it, it’s from Ishalhe and Aela.”

Siri stared at the package for a moment, bewildered. “Um, thanks?”

Ava grinned, then strode off, now headed for where the turian pack was chatting amicably. Siri glanced around, then bounced off toward Han, who was sitting with the Khesnakk brothers and Chesk. “Hi!” she chirped, pouncing on his back and wrapping her arms around his neck. “I miss anything?”

Han twisted his neck to look at her, then moved so she could sit next to him. “Chesk was just complaining about some bug in a VI. What was it again?”

Chesk rumbled and shook his head. “Arctan keeps spitting out incorrect data during tests, and debug programs keep telling me everything’s sound. I’ll have to manually debug later, go through the code and do a problem according to the steps and see if I can find the bad one.”

Sometimes Siri forgot that Chesk was more brilliant than most quarians she knew, and even some salarians. As simple a problem as a bugged VI was, it was still a bit of a shock to hear a krogan the size of five of her rattling off vocabulary that didn’t involve explosions.

Matan asked a question then, and as Chesk answered, she turned to look around the mess hall. The turian pack had taken over their usual table, with everyone currently listening respectfully to Herus tell another of his war stories. Driss was helping Adreon stagger to a table- his hip was bothering him worse than usual today, apparently. Kael, Shala, and Ciloh had taken up positions on the stairs to the walkway to the main battery, poor Kael looking like he was about ready to bolt should the need arise. Solihim and Enoch had managed to pile the serving counter high with food, and Arlis and Midea were walking around distributing steaming mugs of… something.

Her head snapped around as she heard a sharp clinking, and found Valentin had climbed up on a chair and was hitting a glass with a spoon. “Okay, guys, I think we’re about ready to start, if you don’t mind,” he said, once the chatter had died down. He waited a moment to make sure all eyes were on him, then continued, “First, I’d like to thank the captain and the boss for letting us have this little celebration. I know neither of you celebrate Christmas, so it means a lot.”

Siri glanced over her shoulder to see Axilus and Thie, sandwiched in the middle of the turian pack, nodding along, then looked back to Valentin as he continued, “Out of respect for our non-human crewmates and superior officers-” Siri swore she heard Axilus call him a suck-up from across the room, but Valentin either didn’t hear or didn’t care, “we thought it would be fair if the rest of you got to share some of your traditions, as well.” He grinned and rubbed the back of his head. “I mean, being as you’ve all been getting nonstop Christmas bullshit for the past few weeks.”

Aerlia let out a whoop from her spot near Axilus. “I like the mistletoe thing!”

Cephia, sitting next to Aerlia, flushed a very pretty shade of blue, and a bout of snickering went around the room. More than a few people had been witness to Aerlia very excitedly luring her girlfriend underneath the sprigs of fake mistletoe the humans had hung up in various doorways so she could get as many kisses as possible.

Valentin grinned and folded his arms. “Would the turians like to go first, Aerlia?”

Aerlia froze, then elbowed Axilus. “Only if _adeteros_ tells it.”

Axilus grunted, then snorted at her. “It’s not _that_ big a story.”

“Story?” Ava asked, looking up from delivering another gift to Leartios. “C’mon, boss, you tell the best stories!”

“It’s not even a proper story,” Axilus protested. “It’s, like, one of those nature myths. The ones that explain the seasons and shit.”

“He said myth, that’s good enough for me,” one of the battlemaster twins (Jorag? Jiraak? Siri had trouble remembering which was which) said, and the other nodded in agreement.

Axilus groaned and rubbed at his temples, then sighed and settled back in his chair, folding his arms. “Okay, okay. I’ve been over the whole thing about Trebia and Palaven, right? Trebia’s a big fucking bird made of fire, Palaven’s a lizard who really likes their beauty sleep, all that?”

The room collectively nodded, and Axilus flicked his mandibles. “Right, so. Palaven doesn’t like being woken up, under any circumstances. Unfortunately for us, according to legend, they _do_ wake up, for two and a half months of every year. Now, because Trebia is fire, and when Trebia’s gone- meaning at night, of course- everything is cold, clearly Palaven is ice. So every year, when Palaven wakes up, they go on a rampage, because they _really_ hate being awake-”

Siri heard Tovik mutter “Same,” and she turned just long enough to make a shushing gesture.

Axilus continued like he hadn’t heard them. “So when a spirit of ice the size of the planet throws a tantrum, everything either dies from the cold or huddles up and tries not to starve. Thus, we have winter.”

Tovik grunted. “Your planet’s winter is caused by a lizard getting woken up?”

“Hey, have you heard the human myths? Trust me, ancient people get really wild imaginations when it comes to explaining things they don’t have science for yet. Anyway.” Axilus shook his neck out, then snorted. “As I was getting to, there’s all these signs we get before Palaven wakes. Air gets colder, rain feels a little more solid, that sort of thing. So the ancients had this tradition that we now celebrate on the winter solstice where we prepare for the coming scarcity and blah, blah, blah, it’s kind of a boring holiday, really, and kinda depressing, for that matter. All this talk about the dying planet and how we’ll be lucky to survive the next couple months and all that shit. I always liked the spring festival, myself.”

Thie elbowed Axilus then. “Are you done now?”

“I, uh…” Axilus fluttered his mandibles sheepishly. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m done.”

“Good. Moving on.” Thie nodded to the room at large. “Someone else’s turn.”

There was a slight commotion by the stairs to the main battery hall, and Siri turned to watch just as Shala elbowed Kael so hard he fell over onto Ciloh. At some point, Kael had opened the package Ava had given him and donned a bulky, blue-ish purple knit turtleneck that almost completely obscured his hands with overly-long sleeves, and he was currently trying to pull his head back into it. “I, uh, mmmm-my mmm-mom usss-used to… my mom used to t-tell me ab, ab, about…” He swallowed, growing redder by the moment, then looked down and told his knees, “My mom used to t-tell me about the winter sol-solstice on rrrrr-Rannoch. She had pictures. I, um, I thhhhh-thought they were pretty, so I asked her about it, a-and she said on the longest night of the year, the ancestors would paint themselves with glow-in-the-dark stuff. I, um, I don’t remember why, though…”

Shala reached up and rubbed his shoulder reassuringly, and Han made a sympathetic noise in Siri’s ear. “Poor kid,” he said quietly. “Scared of his own shadow, and that ticcing disorder doesn’t help.”

Siri started to say something, but jumped as a series of whirs and thuds interrupted her and Battalion slowly lumbered over to Kael. It stopped in front of him, the flaps on its head in and out slowly until Kael looked up. It considered, then said, “Geth archives suggest winter solstice celebrations were to celebrate nocturnal fauna on Rannoch, which exhibited natural bioluminescence to compensate for the lack of lunar light.”

Kael blinked, visibly shaking, then said, “I, uh… Okay, thank you…”

“Do you wish to contact your mother?”

“No!”

There was a slight shimmer on Battalion’s back, and Graat came into view as his camouflage broke. He shook his head, then leapt off, grabbing hold of the top of a cabinet and clambering up. “Well, there’s no need to shout,” he rasped, then vanished again.

Siri blinked and looked at Han, who just shrugged. “Well, that was a non sequitur.”

“Do you think the author is suffering deadline-induced writer’s block again?” she asked.

“Maybe. Let’s do them a favor and not question the abrupt and somewhat awkward change of subject that’s going to happen in the next paragraph.”

Valentin coughed into his fist. “So, uh, who’s next? Tovik and Matan?”

Both Khesnakks made vaguely disgusted noises. “You know, the whole ‘totalitarian caste-based oligarchy’ kind of takes the fun out of holidays,” Tovik deadpanned. “You can only celebrate how the Hegemony tells you to, if you’re high enough caste to celebrate at all.”

“Yeah, holidays are really only worthwhile outside of Hegemony space,” Matan added.

Valentin looked like he wanted to disappear. “Sorry,” he mumbled, then tugged at his shirt collar. “So, uh, anyone else?”

The room was quiet for a bit, then Luzia cleared her throat. “I’m not sure about other planets, but on my colony, whenever it snowed, we would hold a small festival and build sculptures and forts with the snowfall. I remember one winter, when I was small, my friends and I won a prize for building the most impressive snow fort. We even had a moat.”

From in the kitchen, Enoch whistled. “Nice. Did you ever dig tunnels in the snow? That’s what me and my friends used to do.”

Luzia shook her head. “The snow packed too hard to dig in.”

“Shame. This one year, we got so much snow, we built a whole network of tunnels, across the whole neighborhood. You could go from my place to the Nelsons’ on the other end of the street without ever seeing daylight.”

There was a collective shudder from the turians. “Why do you people willingly go out in that stuff?” Thazix complained. “It’s gross and cold and gets everywhere.”

“Aw, come on, snow’s fun!” Arlis said, taking a sip from her mug. “Didn’t you ever have snowball fights as a kid?”

Thazix twitched a mandible. “Yes. I hated it.”

Enoch snorted. “That’s code for ‘somebody whapped me upside the head’, isn’t it?”

“ _Yes_.”

Siri heard a quiet whisper from the next table over, and she turned around to give Raels a puzzled look. “What did you say?”

Raels merely blinked at her, long and slow, and Chalak, sitting nearby, coughed into his fist. “He asked what snow is. Mannovai’s in too tropical a region to get it, and he’s never heard of it before.”

She frowned slightly. “How have you never heard of snow before?”

Raels rattled something off in the closed dialect, and Chalak nodded. “He’d never left Mannovai before signing on with us, remember? And he doesn’t pay much attention to conversations out of self-defense.” He bobbed his head to Raels and added, “Snow is like rain, but it freezes in the clouds, so it comes down in flakes of ice.”

Raels made an “ah, I get it” sort of expression and nodded, and Siri asked, “So do salarians have any winter holidays?”

Raels nodded, and Chalak said, “It’s probably better if Adreon tells it. He’s a five-stripe priest, he’s supposed to know these things by heart and recite without hesitation.”

“What do the stripes mean again?” Han asked, turning in his chair to join the conversation.

“Three years in the service of the gods for each stripe. Five stripes, fifteen years, and they have anywhere from five to eight years of acolyte training before they attain priesthood.”

“You aren’t questioning my credentials over there, are you?” Adreon called across the mess hall, and Chalak and Raels flinched in unison.

“Of course not, _manaata’ti_ ,” Chalak said, turning to face the surly priest. “We were just explaining how you’d be best suited to telling the story of the Tinkerer’s Feast.”

“The whozza-what now?” Valentin asked.

Adreon stared, then sighed and ran a hand over his horns. “I suppose I have to tell it now, don’t I?”

“Yeah, just a bit.”

Adreon made a frustrated sort of noise and shook his head. “Driss, would you mind getting me another drink? Thank you,” he said, passing his mug to his assistant. “Let me see, the Tinkerer, the Tinkerer… Ah, I remember. Mother used to love the Feast, always had her sermons planned months in advance.”

He cleared his throat and rolled his shoulders, gripping his staff a little more tightly and closing his eyes. “Our faith has a set of three siblings, who together encompass knowledge and innovation. The Painter, god of the arts; the Forger, god of crafting; and the Tinkerer, goddess of invention,” he began, accepting the drink Driss handed him as he returned without opening his eyes, focused on his memory. “These days, our people are known for our intelligence and our talent for the sciences, but this was not always the case.

“Long ago, before recorded history, the Seer and the Listener had business to attend to beyond their domain, and so left their siblings, the Singer and the Dancer, to watch over the newborn salarian people in their stead. But the Singer and Dancer didn’t care for our people as the Twins did; they battered our children with dangerous tides, and threw our parents about with high-speed winds. We were defenseless, still new to the world, and so could do nothing to protect ourselves.”

It was fascinating, Siri found, watching Adreon tell the tale. His eyes were still closed, like he was reading it off the backs of his eyelids. He kept pausing between sentences to take a drink, and the hand clutching his staff looked like it was trying to squeeze it tight enough to snap it in two. Poor Driss didn’t seem sure whether he should do something or not, leaned forward like he was ready to grab Adreon’s arm at any moment.

But Adreon was, apparently, completely fine as he continued on, “Seeing the chaos, the sun fish Pranas took pity on us, and shook free three of their scales, which then grew and took on the forms of many-armed salarians, so they might better help the people. The first scale became the Forger, who taught our people to build shelters from the reeds and plants on the shores. The second became the Painter, who showed us how to sing and cover our walls in pictures, so we might have something to listen to and see besides the raging storms.

“The third scale wondered how she might help the people, as her brothers had before her, and despaired, for they already had what they needed: walls and roofs to shield them, and song and art to keep fear at bay. Determined to be helpful, she took some of her own essence, and she pushed and pulled and kneaded and prodded at it until it took the shape of one of the small fish the people lived with in harmony.

“Seeing no use for it, she gave it to a very young child, fresh out of the water. The child was delighted, and ran to show his friends. So it was that the first toy came to the salarian people. Ecstatic that she had made something of use, the third scale repeated the process, creating thousands of different shapes and toys, so the people might have entertainment as they waited for the storm to pass. And the people, in their gratitude, gave her a name: the Tinkerer, Mother of Imagination, patron of invention. And so every winter, when vicious storms rage across the world, we pay tribute to the Tinkerer, who makes the months of chaos and fear enjoyable.”

Adreon went quiet and opened his eyes, clearly signifying the story was over. The room was dead silent for a solid minute, staring at him, then Aerlia turned and punched Axilus in the shoulder. “ _That’s_ how you tell a story, Ax.”

There was a smattering of laughter at that, and Adreon sat back in his seat, the room’s somber air dissipated. Valentin whistled and clapped. “Probably shoulda remembered you write sermons for fun _before_ I asked you to tell the story, huh, Preacher?”

Adreon cracked a small smile, and Driss nudged him with his shoulder. “I don’t think anyone’s gonna top the salarians now, Adreon, nobody wants to go after a _priest_.”

“Sounds like as good an excuse as any to move on to _my_ favorite part of the festivities,” Enoch called out. “Who wants Christmas cookies?”

-

Thie paced the docking bay, watching as Tovik checked off returning crew. When they’d docked at the Citadel several hours ago, Axilus had said he’d had some shopping to do and to manage resupplying without him, then darted off. They were scheduled to leave in just a few minutes, and the big idiot still wasn’t back.

Or, okay, maybe he was, he amended to himself as he spotted a familiar reddish-brown crest weaving through the crowd towards him. “Axilus! What took you so long? It’s time to go!”

Axilus trotted up to him, a shopping bag in one hand. “Sorry,” he said, fluttering his mandibles. “Remember Aelan? Tol’s daughter? Her birthday’s next month, and I promised Tol I’d help get stuff for her birthday while I was here. And he helped me with, uh… something else.”

Thie folded his arms and raised an eyebrow. “Like what?”

Axilus’s mandibles fluttered wildly. “Well, ah… Remember how Valentin said Christmas is a time to show people you care?”

“Yeah. So?”

Axilus set the bag down and dug in it a moment, then pulled out a small gift-wrapped box, which he then pushed at Thie. “Here.”

Thie frowned but accepted the box, carefully tugging at the bow wrapped around it. The ribbon got caught on his gauntlet armor slightly, but he shook it off and popped the box open, curious.

Inside was a delicate-looking chain, made of what looked to be a simple steel. “This is a _vincorit_ ,” Axilus explained. “Turians wear them to, um… to signify a mating,” he said, his voice dropping rapidly in volume until it was barely a whisper on the last word.

Thie’s eyes went wide, and he stared at the chain as Axilus added lamely, “I thought you’d prefer something simple.”

He was pretty sure he could hear his heart trying to escape via his eardrums. _Mating_. _Mate_. “Spirits, Ax…”

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have surprised you,” Axilus said quickly. “I just-”

Thie interrupted him by throwing his arms around him in the best hug he could manage given the size difference. “You big lug,” he mumbled, squeezing as tight as he dared.

Axilus grunted, then cautiously hugged back. “We can find somewhere to put it on the ship,” he offered. “Mine’s made of polished coral, and there’s another one for Freiya, hers is a really pretty purple stone, I didn’t catch what it’s called, but it’s, like, _exactly_ her favorite shade of purple, so I think she’ll be happy with it…”

He trailed off, then Thie felt his helmet move slightly as Axilus nuzzled the top of his head. “Merry Christmas, Thie. I love you.”


End file.
